WIMMINS

Ah the great mystery of most men. There are some, however, who have that mystery figured out. They romp from one beauty to another, with what appears from the outside to be complete immunity. Mere mortals can't comprehend. I sure can't.

In my travels across the country and into Canada I came to believe that each geographic entity has a certain look. Recently a friend sent me this picture of the new Miss Minnesota. You may not know it, but there's a team working with each woman and my friend is on the winner's team.



The Nordic blond look is common to Minnesota. Not bad at all. Since I worked downtown in a mall I actually did some, uh, research: about every 20 seconds on a busy day, a looker would breeze by. And the lingering presence/scent/glow would keep a standard male in high spirits with a persistence effect, till the next.

Montreal was similarly impressive, though not with a Minnesota look, as Montreal was more haute couture, and less blond. (Is it blonde or blond? Spell check has no clu or clue!) The wimmins there have style and you know it. I remember seeing a woman in a gauzy thing crossing the street in delicate shoes, stepping over the frozen slush as if invincible to the cold. All for fashion, I guess. Even the older wimmins have it: Style.

Here in Texas they grow them differently. I haven't figured it quite out. It's no coincidence there have been so many Miss Americas from this state. But the look in Austin is different from Houston and certainly from Dallas and El Paso is a hard dose of hardscrabble reality to my eye. A state this wide surely has variations.

And of course I must sneak a look for my pure research while blinded by Terri.

Miss Texas USA 2006 Lauren Lanning *

See what I mean?


* Apparently they haven't held the Miss Texas (going to compete for Miss America) pageant yet, so I did the best I could. There are competing pageants. I think Miss USA goes to Miss World. I also thinks Donald Trump owns all of that and regularly restocks his wife-bar from the contestants. Says Donald, "Don't think of it as a lot of hair plastered like a wing on my head... think that every hair is a million dollars. How's it look now?"